Osaka-Williams, with all its crisscrossing subplots, began with Osaka looking nervous and veered into Osaka looking like a supernova in the hot Australian sun. From a 2-0 deficit off the bat, the 23-year-old summoned the power with which she long has emulated Williams, who exited at age 39 by putting her hand to her heart toward a crowd limited to sparse because of the coronavirus pandemic.
As Osaka sprang from 0-2 to 5-2 and then to a lead of 6-3, 2-0, she crushed groundstrokes but also crashed in serves that sometimes dug her out of little thickets. That, too, rather resembled the Williams of 23 storied years and 23 Grand Slam titles, and rendered irrelevant the improved mobility that had guided Williams through her first five matches.
Only once did Osaka’s surge subside, and even that turn led to something telltale. The dip happened as Osaka double-faulted thrice within one game while serving at 4-3 in the second set. When the last fault strayed wide up the middle and closed out the game, it appeared some kind of match might be on.
Well, from there, Osaka won the last eight points. She broke Williams’s serve at love by sending a gasp of a backhand up the line for a clean winner, yanking a backhand crosscourt for another clean winner, watching a Williams double fault that ended in the net, and smacking some searing crosscourt forehands that set up a winning backhand.
So she served for the match. She began with an ace up the middle, continued with a service to the T that caused Williams to launch a forehand wide, continued with a service to the corner that caused Williams to send a forehand extremely wide, and hit a fourth troublesome serve that led to a brief rally and Williams’s netting of a final backhand.
Then Osaka greeted Williams at the net with a slight bow and a clear reverence and a gentle hug, after which she told ESPN, “I was a little kid watching her play, and just to be on the court playing her is a dream.” She would have a chance at a second Australian Open title to go with her two U.S. Open titles, one of which foiled Williams in 2018 one year after Williams gave birth to her daughter, and became part of a Grand Slam title search still ongoing.
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